President Donald Trump opens his two-nation European visit expecting a warm welcome in Poland before he encounters what could be a frostier reception at an international summit in Germany.
His sit-down meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile threaten to put the tycoon’s skills as a negotiator to the test.
Mr Trump arrived in Warsaw late on Wednesday for a 16-hour visit that includes a keynote address to the Poles from Krasinski Square, site of a monument commemorating the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis.
Scores of people who lined darkened roads waved American and Polish flags and recorded video of Mr Trump’s motorcade as it sped him and his wife, Melania, to their hotel.
Mr Trump has scheduled talks with the leaders of Poland and Croatia and may hold a joint news conference – his first one abroad – with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
He will also meet the heads of a dozen countries bordered by the Baltic, Adriatic and Black seas. Collectively known as the Three Seas Initiative, the group aims to expand and modernise energy and trade with a goal of reducing the region’s dependence on Russian energy.
Mr Duda told Polish broadcaster TVN24 on Wednesday that he wants to tackle concrete issues like energy security in the meeting with Mr Trump, not engage in “some general talk about world security”.
Mr Trump recently devoted a week to US energy production.
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